Pulse

By GCN Staff

Facial recognition authenticates cruise ship passengers

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is looking at the results of facial recognition technology used to authenticate cruise ship passengers as they disembark.

An ocean-going version of CBP's Biometric Exit program, the “Sea Re-entry” trial, used IDEMIA’s facial capture and recognition solution to verify that individuals disembarking Royal Caribbean Line (RCL) ships were the same ticketed passengers who boarded at the start of a cruise. The trial, which was conducted at Cape Liberty Cruise Port, N.J., and demonstrated high-quality, high-speed facial matching, also expedited passengers' Customs inspections, officials said.

IDEMIA is the new company name for MorphoTrust, which has developed several facial recognition solutions in the government space, including New York's pilot program that flags identity theft through analysis of Department of Motor Vehicles images.

"Facial recognition in particular is a non-intrusive way to easily and securely facilitate U.S. and non-U.S. citizens entering and exiting the country,” said Bob Eckel, president of IDEMIA North America. "The biometric solutions we are testing with RCL and CBP allow us to demonstrate the important technology that can be used in border management applications today in an efficient and safe manner."

CBP has been testing facial recognition technology at a number of airports, including Houston's William P. Hobby International, Las Vegas' McCarran International Airport, Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston and O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. It plans to have the technical capability to support biometric exit at the top 20 U.S. airports by early next year.

The agency also is working with JetBlue on a program that allows passengers exiting the country to have their pictures taken at a camera station in lieu of being issued a boarding pass. For land border crossings, CBP wants to use facial recognition technology to validate the identities of travelers entering and exiting the country without requiring occupants to leave their moving vehicle.

Editor's note: This article was changed Nov. 28 to clarify that IDEMIA is running the test, not CBP as previously stated.